LG's recent entrants into the flagship mobile space haven't been the most exciting phones — though it was funny seeing LG launch the V30threetimes. Now a series of renders and a 360-degree video from @OnLeaks and 91mobiles have given our first potential glimpse at LG's upcoming G8.

LG's recent entrants into the flagship mobile space haven't been the most exciting phones — though it was funny seeing LG launch the V30threetimes. Now a series of renders and a 360-degree video from @OnLeaks and 91mobiles have given our first potential glimpse at LG's upcoming G8. And if you've seen the G7, then this new phone will look pretty familiar, though it has a pretty big twist: There's no earpiece.

LG's recent entrants into the flagship mobile space haven't been the most exciting phones — though it was funny seeing LG launch the V30threetimes. Now a series of renders and a 360-degree video from @OnLeaks and 91mobiles have given our first potential glimpse at LG's upcoming G8. And if you've seen the G7, then this new phone will look pretty familiar, though it has a pretty big twist: There's no earpiece.

According to a recent article by Bloomberg, late last year Google sneakily picked up a U.K.-based startup called Redux that was working on some snazzy tech which can turn surfaces—like the screen on a phone or tablet—into speakers, and even provide more focused haptic effects. The precise date of the acquisition isn't certain, but according to Crunchbase, the deal was announced last August.

Redux's site has been taken down since the acquisition, but thanks to the magic of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, we can see some of the details behind the startup.